Presenter Simon Thomas speaks out about 'brutal loneliness' after losing wife to cancer

Presenter Simon Thomas has spoken out about the ‘brutal loneliness’ he’s experiencing, after losing his wife Gemma to cancer.

Gemma passed away in November after a relatively short and aggressive battle with cancer that all happened within a matter of days.

Sky Sports presenter Simon, 45, said some heartfelt things about her passing: ‘The loneliness is brutal,’ he admitted, while appearing on this morning’s Lorraine.

He described the grief as he goes about ‘the mundane’ day-to-day tasks around the house: ‘This is where grief gets you, it’s in the mundane,’ he said as the star revealed that he broke down doing the washing up just the other week.

He says that, despite he and his son having lived without her for over 8 months, he reveals how waves of sadness and emotion just hit him: ‘I was trying to get through it all… and I just started crying.’

He shared that during the time when the grief ‘hit’ him all over again, son Ethan, was there to offer support: ‘It just hit me again. I have to struggle through this on my own, and I started crying.’

‘But within 20 seconds I heard the pitter-patter of feet up the stairs and he gave me a hug, and told me, “Daddy, you’re going to be OK”.’

When asked by host Lorraine Kelly whether he was still adjusting to life without her, Simon confessed to viewers just how hard it was: ‘The loneliness is brutal. It is, because you’ve gone in three days – she left the house to go to A&E in Redding, and she never walked back into the house again.

‘She’s not there anymore and it hurts.’

Simon appeared on This Morning back in February to talk about how devastating the loss was for him and his eight-year-old son Ethan as presenters Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield broke down in tears during the chat.

‘I never even had the chance to say goodbye,’ an emotional Simon confessed on the programme.

(REX)

The former Blue Peter presenter turned Sky Sports host revealed in April that he was quitting his current job to spend more time with his son and to focus on his own life: ‘After many, many weeks of wrestling with the question of what to do, I wanted to put it in writing what I have decided, and it’s with a heavy, but peaceful heart that I write these words: I have decided to leave Sky at the end of the season.’

He went on to describe his reasons, citing how he’d fallen out of love with the sport and job he once adored: ‘Being totally honest, the game I have loved for my whole life, the game I’ve had the amazing privilege of working on for these past few years, at the moment just doesn’t matter.’

For more information on the disease, click here.

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